Blog
17 August 2010
I am busy making plans for the next few months, as after August, things really do start to kick off after nothing happening for the summer.
After such a lean year on the competition front, I am itching to get back into it and move up to the next level - FINALLY, and have a proper crack at the adult level. Its a really exciting prospect that I can have 2 attempts at the level. The more I look at the riders at that level, the more I know I ahve to learn.
ROLL ON AUTUMN!!
3 August 2010
I have been having a few hot and hard weeks with the weather getting above 40 degrees, making riding a sweaty affair. All the horses are really going nicely, Ruben has had one of those lightbulb moments, where the tempi changes and pirouettes that weren't working are now really starting to come together.
Hugo has now decided that he can put his head in the right place! With the help of lunging him with the side reins fixed a little higher on a lunging belt, which seems to have worked quite nicely. His neck is so huge, my trainer warned me that unless I get it in a certain rythm, it will be hard to correct it later on, because of him being a stallion and that his neck/head are set on quite high.
This last weekend, I was asked by my sponsor, Cereales Iberia S.L.(the official Dodson & Horrell suppliers for Southern Spain) to go and work on their trade stand at the 3 day National Show Jumping competition, which was being held in the Escuela de Arte Ecuestre, Estepona. Of course, I was happy to go and help as Cliff, who has been a very good friend for many years, and does not speak fluent Spanish, would have been alone all weekend. It was a fantastic 3 days and we gave out many samples to the riders, watched lots of jumping and spoke to many new riders from all over Spain.
10 July 2010
I have one thing to say (and laugh about!) - 3 YEAR OLD HORSES! One day, you feel like its all going in the right direction, the next, you wonder if you got the wrong horse out cos the wild animal in front of you MUST be a mistake!
Yesterdays schooling session (if you can call it that) was exactly one of those days, where he simply didn't want to. Its the oldest test of patience in the book, when the horses are playing you up like this - lose your temper and you lose altogether. So a lovely time was had by all and the patience in the end pays off. We ended the session with some reasonable trotting on the lunge and the angelic face asking for a sugar belied the demon that we had just seen. And so, order was returned and we are of course, still friends and he is always forgiven!
My mother always tells me that you wouldn't want the horses if they had no character - that is so true.
7 July 2010 - "Ruben won his class at the National Competition"
It has been a long time since my last blog about the horses, and yet again, a lot has happened and with my work becoming more and more time consuming, fitting everything in is a challenge.
On the horse side of life, things are progressing rather nicely. Kir has had the final OK from the vets and we are now thinking about starting with dressage training again. I am so grateful to Pepe Simo and his team as they have been so thorough and supportive, Kir is feeling VERY well and a little bit cheeky - which I'm actually very pleased about.
Ruben has been to a few social competitions and we have been fine tuning some problems during the tests to improve his performance. I like the social competitions for this reason, sometimes you just need to sort things out in the test, for both you and the horse. It worked really well, because we then went to our first National competition, he did really well and ended up winning his class on the second day! So we are very pleased with him, and although he is growing still, we are very positive about his progess and are aiming for the first San Jorge test later this year.
Hugo continues to progress in baby steps, we are now walk, trot and a bit of unbalanced canter. I really enjoy this part of the horses once you are past the "I don't want to" bucking and messing around, and they begin to understand, it is so rewarding watching the day by day development.
On a different note, I went today to meet a colleague who has offered to write an article on me and dressage in the magazine he works for! Great, some much needed publicity for the sport on the costa!
Anyway, back to the grindstone for me!
23 June 2010
This has been the most dreadful week. Having recently rescued a little Dashound from a private breeder (puppy farm more like), I was delighted at our new arrival. But within one week, she had a severe absess in her mouth, putting pressure on her brain. A panic trip to the vets and a stack of tablets later, she seemed to be doing ok.
However, one Friday night, she was playing in the pista whilst I rode, and had a whale of a time with Freddie. The next morning, she looked very tired and wobbly on her legs, by the next morning, she could hardly stand up and in the evening was completely paralysed. We rushed her into the vets the next morning, only to be misdiagnosed that the liquid pouch in the spine had herniated and was putting pressure on the nerves. This apparantly, could only be cured with a highly 
risky contrasting xray and even riskier and expensive surgery.
We thought about it at home and decided rather than the risk and upset of this painful surgery to the poor little dog, the best thing would be to put her to sleep. Easier said than done! Our vet wouldn't do it as the micro chip was not in our name and after trying several other vets, we finally found the vet who had treated her with the old owner and he said that perhaps to be sure, we should get an Xray of her back and see for sure what was going on.
So a trip to yet another vets, and the xrays showed severe calcification and degeneration on the whole spine. Poor little mite, I can honestly say I have never cried so much in a long time. But now our dear little Mini is running about in doggie heaven and I can only be thankful that I gave her the best few weeks of her life.
30 March 2010
Its been a while since my last entry, but so much has been going on. Around Valentines Day, I flew to the UK to meet my boyfriends parents at his mothers 70th birthday, which was great. We were then supposed to be leaving the next morning to fly back to Spain together so I could ride my horses and then drive him to Seville where he was running a marathon. Sadly, the greatest laid plans and all that...... we OVERSLEPT and had no chance of getting to the airport in time!!! So instead we took his mums greyhounds for a long walk in the forest and had a chilled day. It was no great loss as it POURED down torrentially again in Spain, so riding was out and the marathon would have been awful. But we are now looking for another one for him to do as it was for a charity, there is no getting out of it!
At the end of February, I was treated to a trip to Vienna to see the Spanish Riding School, which was amazing. We watched the morning training, did the tour and came back the next morning for the show. What a fabulous place and the city itself was super. I was pretty inspired to get back to my boys after that!
After another 2 mad weeks of working, riding (when it wasn't raining), we tried to go to the Sunshine Tour to watch some dressage and give my boyfriend a better idea of what he was letting himself in for. The first trial was a waste of time as the rain was torrential, half of Cadiz under water, and the classes cancelled. the next weekend, we did get to go and see it, with lovely weather, which was nice.
In the last couple of weeks, I have been catching up on my work, having taken on some more work from my vet, Pepe Simo, who is the official vet to the Olympic Team, and the website for the clinic I work for, its a busy working time. I am also using the nice weather to get a spring clean done on my tack room, which seems to have ever growing elastic sides!
The horses are finally back into proper work, with Ruben aiming to go to some local competitions for a practice this month. They seem relieved to be able to go out in the paddocks and have some sun on their backs. Hugo will be broken this week with any luck (FINALLY!) and Kir is now back and feeling good for the summer!
Onwards and upwards so they say!
16 February 2010
RAIN, RAIN and more RAIN. Honestly, for fear of sounding like a one track record, it has absolutely poured down again for the whole weekend, and the rain is forecast till the end of next week.Riding is virtually impossible unless you have an indoor arena, as the rain is not only constant but torrential.
The weekend away in the UK was eventful and real good fun even though we managed to miss our flight back to Spain on the Saturday and we couldn't get out of the UK until the Sunday lunchtime. So no marathon, although Jon has made a promise to find another one to run (preferably without the flight to get there!)
The horses are really bored at the moment and I can't wait till the day when we can get back riding. In the meantime, I am concentrating on my work, getting everything out of the way whilst I have some more time.
10 February 2010
The stables are in a complete mess at the moment as we are having to extend the turnouts to have somewhere small and hard to let Kir out whilst he is recouperating. Along with that and the continuous rain we have had since before christmas, its all looking a bit wet and dirty.
Its frustrating at the moment because my pista needs a couple of days to dry out and everytime it dries out enough, it starts to rain again!! Thankfully, we only get a couple of months every year like this and then it is blissful sunshine.
On the theme of Kir's recuperation, I have now found a new vet who is absolutely great and I hope we can get Kir back working and competing as soon as possible.He has advised me to go back to walking work before the next scan, which I am going to the Sunshine Tour for. There is an expert radiologist there who my vet is going to arrange to do my scan, so we will get a real specialist opinon.
With all the breaks we have had with the weather, Hugo is still not broken to ride, but he is lunging really well and it should be a small step to actually get on his back. I can't wait!!
Tomorrow is my last day of work and training before going to the UK on my flying visit to meet my boyfriends parents and then his marathon at the weekend, so it will mean a lot of rushing about to get everything sorted before the off!
